


A Mess In Multiple Dimensions, A Little Unconventional

by w_k_smith



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Beetlejuice is Lydia's weird brother, Cameras, Cameras and Ghosts, Crossover, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Old Oak Doors, Surreal, beetlebabes dni obv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23211529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/w_k_smith/pseuds/w_k_smith
Summary: Beetlejuice and Lydia visit a pawn shop in a strange and unusual dimension.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	A Mess In Multiple Dimensions, A Little Unconventional

_A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep._

_Welcome to Night Vale_

_*  
_

Beetlejuice was asleep three feet above the couch, swaying ever-so-slightly like a snoring, stripy balloon. Lydia didn’t even know that Beetlejuice could sleep, and had no idea if he needed it. He still _looked_ pretty terrible – maybe his eyes were a little less sunken, and his hair was a little less electrocuted. At least this gave her a chance to raise her Polaroid camera’s view to her eye, center the frame, and take the picture with a loud _snap_ of the shutter.

One of Beetlejuice’s eyes popped open. Lydia ignored him as the camera spat out the picture, which started as a grey blur on a square of white paper. She shook the paper until the image cleared and resolved…into a picture of empty space above the couch.

“Damn it,” Lydia muttered.

“What’s goin’ on, Lyds?” Beetlejuice asked.

“None of my cameras take pictures of ghosts,” she said, shoving the useless photo into her pocket. Her SLR camera, her digital camera, and the camera on her phone had all failed to capture the Maitlands. The faux-retro Polaroid camera her father had given her on her last birthday was her last resort. Though Beetlejuice was the least cooperative – and least photogenic – ghost in the house, she’d wondered if his mixed ghost/demon status might make a difference. Apparently, it didn’t.

“Of course not,” Beetlejuice said, opening both eyes to roll them. “It would be pretty hard to keep breathers out of ghost business if getting us on film or a memory card was that easy.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes again and folded his arms behind his head. “Take pictures of literally anything else?”

Lydia crossed her arms. “Or?”

Beetlejuice didn’t react at first, but Lydia stayed where she was, making it very clear she wasn’t going to go away.

“ _Ugh_.” Beetlejuice sat up and settled on the back of the couch. “There is _maybe_ one place you could find something as weird as a camera that can pick up ghosts. _But_ I’m not exactly a fan.”

Lydia didn’t move, didn’t say a word, just raised her eyebrows in a way that said, _Hey, asshole, remember how you owe me for extorting me into a green card marriage?_

He rested his chin in his hand and gave her a look right back that said, _Remember how you stabbed me and then I saved your life?_

But Beetlejuice caved first. “ _Fine_. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you, kid. It’s a weird place. And not exactly in this dimension, so prepare to get your passport stamped.”

Lydia flinched, and her fingers tightened around the camera. “I don’t want to back to the Netherworld.”

He waved a hand, and jumped to the ground. “Who does? Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the Netherworld. This place has a funny relationship with reality, and doesn’t give much weight to ideas like ‘space’ and ‘time’ and ‘logic,’ but the regular living world…” He waved his hands vaguely. “Look, it’s like they share a backyard. And I know how to jump the fence.”

Beetlejuice shoved two grimy fingers in his mouth and whistled. The nearest door – a closet that held board games and dead moths – flew open, and Big Sandy’s nesting doll head came through, somehow cramming through the closet doorway without breaking the wall.

“Who’s a good sandworm?” Beetlejuice cooed. Big Sandy opened her mouth, and her inner head poked out to snap at the world. Beetlejuice scratched it on the snout. “Who’s Daddy’s precious monster baby?”

Lydia pet Big Sandy’s outer head. “Hey, Sandy. Eat anyone interesting today?”

“OK, kid, hop on,” Beetlejuice said. In a surprisingly fluid motion, he hoisted himself onto Big Sandy’s back.

She hung her camera around her neck, and frowned. “Is that safe?”

“‘ _Is that safe?_ ’” he mimicked. “Of course not! Are you coming or what?”

He held out his hand. Lydia took it, and climbed onto Big Sandy, glad that the colder weather had started her wearing leggings under her dress. She sat astride the sandworm, and realized just how little there was to hang on to.

“Hee-yah!” Beetlejuice said, and pantomimed snapping reins.

Big Sandy jerked backwards, and the closet door slammed shut behind them, but instead of being a tiny, musty room, an alien desert stretched from one horizon to the next. Yellow sand churned in the wind, and the sky, a deep lavender, had more than one moon.

“Here we go!” Beetlejuice yelled.

Big Sandy twisted, reared back so far Lydia was afraid she’d fall off, and dove down at the sand. Lydia yelped, and her stomach wrapped around her ribcage as they plummeted. The ground opened up right before Big Sandy crashed into it. A swirling tube of sand rushed around them as Big Sandy burrowed underground. Lydia held on as tightly as she could with her hands and knees. Big Sandy angled upward again, and inertia first pressed Lydia down, then threatened to drag her off the sandworm’s back.

They cleared the ground, arcing over the desert. Beetlejuice whooped. At the height of Big Sandy’s jump, Lydia spared one hand to push her hair out of her face, and realized she was laughing.

Down into the ground again. This time, Lydia was ready, and her grimace as she braced herself for the sand was partially a smile. When Big Sandy resurfaced, she didn’t jump as high, and instead of burrowing, she skidded to a stop in the sand.

The view was pretty much the same. The only difference was a simple wooden door sticking out of the ground nearby, not attached to any other structure. Dunes of sand rolled in every other direction, and Lydia wondered how big this desert world was.

“This is our stop,” Beetlejuice said.

Lydia slid off Big Sandy’s back and walked over to the door. She hesitated, but turned the knob, and the door swung open to show a paved road and sidewalk on the other side, instead of more desert. Lydia stepped through the doorway.

It was immediately clear that this was a different world, not just from the desert, but also from the world Lydia was used to living in. The sky was twilight, and the stars were starting to come out. There were other lights in the sky, too. Bright flashes erupted here and there before going dark. An arrow streaked across the sky before pausing, and fading, like it was pointing at something. Across the street, a kid zipped by on his bike. Except, it wasn’t a kid. It was a pile of leaves. Then, a few feet later, a butterfly. Then the butterfly became a school of colorful fish, and the bike turned a corner, taking the rider out of sight.

Lydia lifted her camera to her face, and centered the shot so the picture would show both the main street and the strange night sky above. She took the picture, and a few seconds later the camera ejected the Polaroid. She shook the Polaroid, but when she checked the result, all that had developed were block-print red letters reading: _NO THANK YOU_.

“Pawn shop’s this way,” Beetlejuice said, gesturing down the road.

They passed a Ralph’s, and a bowling alley. After that was Jackie’s Pawn Shop, a little, old-fashioned building with windows that were full of junk and yellow light. When Lydia went inside, the only person in the pawn shop was a young woman at the counter, who Lydia guessed must be Jackie. She had brown skin and black hair, and was dressed in well-worn flannel. Her Doc Martens were up on the counter as she flipped through a magazine.

“Welcome to the pawn shop, guys,” she said.

Lydia turned around, and gave Beetlejuice a questioning look.

“Death doesn’t mean squat here,” he said. “Watch this.”

He hooked his fingers into his upper and lower jaw and yanked backwards, peeling his head open to leave his striped, pointed tongue waving in the air.

“Sorry, man, we don’t have a public bathroom,” Jackie said. She turned the page in her magazine.

Beetlejuice let go, and his face returned to normal. Normal for him, anyway. “Doing that always gives me a splitting headache,” he said.

“I hate you,” Lydia said.

She stepped up to the counter. “Um, excuse me…”

“If you’re here about the ‘ideas-about-time’ special, that’s over,” Jackie said. “I’ve moved on to secrets.”

“Do you have any cameras that can take pictures of ghosts?”

“So, like, a camera?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Give me a sec.” Jackie swung her legs off the counter and walked into the shelves that filled the rest of the pawn shop. Lydia leaned forward to look into the shadows, but couldn’t see how big the shop actually was. A minute later, Jackie returned. Lydia was taken aback, because she didn’t see Jackie walk back to the counter. Jackie was just back again, holding a boxy black instant camera that wasn’t too different from the one Lydia already had.

“OK, that’ll be $11. Or, until the end of next week, you can pay with a secret,” Jackie said. “Just so long as it’s one you haven’t told anyone.”

Lydia turned around and glared at Beetlejuice. He made a big show of plugging his ears with his fingers. Lydia wasn’t sure if she was more sorry for his ears or his fingers. Both could use a wash.

When Lydia turned back to Jackie…her voice died in her mouth. What secrets did she have? She _had_ secrets, obviously, she was a fifteen-year-old girl, but it was like that awful moment in school where the teacher asked you to “say something interesting about yourself” – Lydia hated that.

“I called Beetlejuice my friend last week,” she heard herself saying. Jackie didn’t look interested at all, but Lydia kept going. “Some guy in my English class asked me if I had ever seen _Poltergeist_ , and I said a friend made me watch it.” She’d left out the part where Beetlejuice had said it was “one of Spielberg’s better comedies.” “And I think I meant it, when I said it. I wasn’t just saying ‘a friend’ to keep from explaining that I have a ghost in my house.”

“Is that it?” Jackie asked. Her tone wasn’t mean. She was acting like a cashier waiting for a customer to count out their change.

“Yes,” Lydia said.

“Here ya go.” She handed Lydia the camera. “Come back soon. We’re open whenever.”

“Whenever?”

“Whenever I feel like it.”

“ _Can I turn around now?!_ ” Beetlejuice asked, too loudly.

Lydia tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go home,” she said.

“Happy to,” he said.

As soon as they were both standing on the sidewalk, the lights in the pawn shop went out. Lydia looked over her shoulder. The windows weren’t just dark, they were empty. She couldn’t see any sign of Jackie.

“Oooh, what a mysterious town I am!” Beetlejuice said, flapping his hand like a puppet. “Reality shifts when you aren’t looking! _Gaze upon the void_.”

“I know why you don’t like it here,” Lydia said, sing-song, walking back the way they’d come.

He snorted. “Because it’s dumb?”

“Because you aren’t special here,” she said. “Everything is so weird in…in…”

“Night Vale.”

“Night Vale.” The name was appropriate, Lydia supposed. “Everything’s so weird in Night Vale, you aren’t noticeable. And you can’t stand that.”

“What can I say? I rely on sight gags. And this town is a post-post-modern rejection of visual storytelling.”

The wooden door wasn’t far ahead. Lydia took a last look up at the sky. The moving lights were gone, replaced by a line of ghostly figures racing across the night. When Lydia opened the door, she blinked hard against the bright of the desert.

Big Sandy was waiting, and affectionately head-butted Beetlejuice onto his ass as soon as he appeared. Lydia laughed so hard tears welled up in her eyes. Still, she was able to keep her hands steady enough to raise her camera and take a picture.

“Great,” Beetlejuice muttered. “That’s just great.”

The camera released the picture. Lydia shook it. Her smile grew even wider as the blur began to fill with stripes.

*

_Today’s Proverb: Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is a poisonous arthropod._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! Any and all feedback is appreciated.
> 
> For those of you reading this while we're still in COVID-19 lock down: Remember to wash your hands, stay inside, and be kind to each other. For everyone else: How's the future?
> 
> Side note: Is it "pawn shop" or "pawnshop"? I thought it was the first one, but spellcheck seemed to think it was one word?


End file.
